A new report claims Google will show off a new music service resembling Amazon's Cloud Drive on Tuesday at the company's I/O conference.

Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported on Monday that Google Music will be unveiled on Tuesday without the cooperation of major music labels. Though the search giant had originally planned a "more robust version" of the service, talks between Google and the labels have stalled, according to the report.

Unfortunately, a couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms, said Jamie Rosenberg, who oversees digital content and strategy for Googles Android platform.

Without music licenses, Google will be unable to sell songs to users of the service, Kafka said. The company plans to offer free storage up to 20,000 and include a feature that automatically generates playlists in order to differentiate itself from competing services.

Google Music is expected to launch with an invite-only beta on Tuesday, and then roll out to all U.S. users "within weeks." Google executive Zahavah Levine told CNet that the service will require a browser that supports Flash, making it incompatible with Apple's iOS devices.

Rosenberg declined to comment on future pricing plans for Google Music, though he did say that at least part of the service is designed to be free of charge. I think as Google typically does, I think the free aspect will continue to be very generous, he said.

Rival Amazon launched its Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services in late March, offering 5GB of free storage, enough for roughly 2,000 songs. After the launch, reports emerged that the online retailer had released the service before securing new licenses with the music labels. Media industry members were stunned, with some viewing the service as illegal.

Amazon's cloud music service launched with support for streaming via the Web and on Google Android devices, but the company quietly began supporting Apple's iOS devices last week. iOS users who navigate to the site will receive a warning that the mobile Safari browser is not supported, though the service does indeed work.

Meanwhile, Apple is prepping its own service, which is expected to be named iCloud. AppleInsider reported late last month that the company has been using the iCloud name internally and plans to support more than just music. The service would be integrated into both iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X Lion and would sync and store information such as bookmarks, email, contacts and iCal events.

Last month, reports claimed that Apple had completed work on a cloud-based iTunes music streaming service and signed licensing deals with at least two of the four major music labels.

Apple's new $1 billion, 500,000 square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C., is expected to play a vital role in supporting the rumored service. The company's executives have already stated that the massive server farm will support iTunes and MobileMe when it commences operations this spring.

I am honestly surprised Google opted to build this on Flash. I understood the support for Flash on Android, since it provided them with a differentiator. But I thought they were genuine about their like for open technologies. Amazon has shown that you obviously don't need Flash to build such a service, and to see Google go towards flash is just really surprising to me.

I guess Google is in completely "all hands on deck" mode as far as Android is concerned. Nevermind "Don't be evil", nevermind "open source", forget about "open web". All that matters now is Android. Lets just hope the usage of Flash (the number 1 source of vulnerabilities on any platform, right now) will not come back to bite them in the backside.

The only thing I am curious about is if this was the direction Schmidt wanted to go in, or if its the direction Larry Page is taking them in.

I sincerely hope there is more to Google I/O though. Although their track record has been pretty bad, with the only success being Android, they have always released interesting products at the very least. An incomplete music service, which has already been beat to the market by Amazon, and will be upstaged by a more complete version from Apple in about a month, will be below expectations.

Edit: Wow...Google really is "whoring" themselves out for Android. I went to www.google.com, and what do i see, but a text ad for the Nexus S. The only other time I have seen an ad on google.com was for Chrome, which still makes sense, since its a browser with google.com completely built in. I did not expect this either.

1) How many of these "hurt lockers" are we gonna see before Apple shows everyone how it's done? Even though Apple's online services have been less successful I can't help but think their data center + duration of this rumour + the recent scolding and firing from Jobs on the MobileMe launch + Amazon and Google rushing to market with a preemptive "me too" service with no label backing means that Apple has a winner.

2) Flash-based service?! Google used to be all about supporting open standards. This almost sounds like they are purposely excluding iOS-based devices.

3) Not having native app access at launch tells me it's rushed.

4) Why leak this the night before the the keynote?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Scrip

It's always good to rush to beat Apple at something.

That's what I was thinking.

Quote:

So... how different will Google's "music locker" be from the one Amazon just launched? I guess it's never a bad idea to have more than one free service to choose from.

I'm also interested to see what Apple comes up with too...

Looks like more storage and their version of Apple's Genius playlists.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I know I'm an Apple fan...but this is exactly my impression of Google's attempts at anything that isn't Search.

Hurry up and hope that it takes! I think I read from someone here on AI who said, Google software always feels like it's a Beta release. Personally, I just don't like it and prefer Apple's "polished" approach much better.

I am honestly surprised Google opted to build this on Flash. I understood the support for Flash on Android, since it provided them with a differentiator. But I thought they were genuine about their like for open technologies. Amazon has shown that you obviously don't need Flash to build such a service, and to see Google go towards flash is just really surprising to me.

I guess Google is in completely "all hands on deck" mode as far as Android is concerned. Nevermind "Don't be evil", nevermind "open source", forget about "open web". All that matters now is Android. Lets just hope the usage of Flash (the number 1 source of vulnerabilities on any platform, right now) will not come back to bite them in the backside.

The only thing I am curious about is if this was the direction Schmidt wanted to go in, or if its the direction Larry Page is taking them in.

I sincerely hope there is more to Google I/O though. Although their track record has been pretty bad, with the only success being Android, they have always released interesting products at the very least. An incomplete music service, which has already been beat to the market by Amazon, and will be upstaged by a more complete version from Apple in about a month, will be below expectations.

Edit: Wow...Google really is "whoring" themselves out for Android. I went to www.google.com, and what do i see, but a text ad for the Nexus S. The only other time I have seen an ad on google.com was for Chrome, which still makes sense, since its a browser with google.com completely built in. I did not expect this either.

With Apple you get Stevoreno (Steve Jobs, AKA "The Steve") who is able to control and direct said "programmers" into producing software that is intuitive like iTunes, Safari, iLife, iWork, OSX, iOS, etc., etc.

On one hand, this is pretty crazy that competitors like Amazon and Google are competing with a non-existant/ not released product. On the other hand, Apple had better do something quick, or they risk being late to their own party.

A new report claims Google will show off a new music service resembling Amazon's Cloud Drive on Tuesday at the company's I/O conference.

Peter Kafka of MediaMemo reported on Monday that Google Music will be unveiled on Tuesday without the cooperation of major music labels. Though the search giant had originally planned a "more robust version" of the service, talks between Google and the labels have stalled, according to the report.

Unfortunately, a couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms, said Jamie Rosenberg, who oversees digital content and strategy for Googles Android platform.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ][/url][/c]

Really. How dare those music labels prevent Google from releasing it's more robust version. Just because they would like to earn money by selling the music that they went to the trouble to produce, publish, and market (spent money to do those things).

Really, it's unreasonable and unsustainable to be beholden to such outdated methods of doing business. Interfering with Google's ability to let users enjoy the fruits of the music industry's labor for free is so yesterday. How dare them! Free the music. Free the music.

Google does this with every product since they really don't own that much IP.

Itll shake out because they dont own that much IP? Are you saying they cant be sued and cant settle for a large out of court settlement and failed services trying to usurp the rumours of what Apple is planning to offer? You should note that Amazon and Google have a lot of cash on hand, revenue and profits.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Really. How dare those music labels prevent Google from releasing it's more robust version. Just because they would like to earn money by selling the music that they went to the trouble to produce, publish, and market (spent money to do those things).

Really, it's unreasonable and unsustainable to be beholden to such outdated methods of doing business. Interfering with Google's ability to let users enjoy the fruits of the music industry's labor for free is so yesterday. How dare them! Free the music. Free the music.

/sarcasm

I can't be on the Music labels side on this. My music is my music. Regardless of whether it's stored on flash, a hard drive, or cloud storage I lease... it is still my music.

Really. How dare those music labels prevent Google from releasing it's more robust version. Just because they would like to earn money by selling the music that they went to the trouble to produce, publish, and market (spent money to do those things).

Really, it's unreasonable and unsustainable to be beholden to such outdated methods of doing business. Interfering with Google's ability to let users enjoy the fruits of the music industry's labor for free is so yesterday. How dare them! Free the music. Free the music.

/sarcasm

Why should the labels dictate whether I store the music I PAID for on a harddrive connected to my computer via a USB cable or in a data center connected to my computer via my cable modern?

If the labels had their way we'd all have to pay to buy the song on CD then pay again to listen to the same song on an iPhone and then pay a third time to listen to the song on a cloud music player.

I can't be on the Music labels side on this. My music is my music. Regardless of whether it's stored on flash, a hard drive, or cloud storage I lease... it is still my music.

I dont think they are trying to prevent you from backing up your content, but are trying to get these big companies to license their access if they are going to add server-based jukebox features. I dont think that is unreasonable.

I also dont think Apples service will be like Amazon or Googles service which is pretty much basic server backups with a playlist option for your music. You cant get anymore low rent than that and call it a music service.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

2) Flash-based service?! Google used to be all about supporting open standards. This almost sounds like they are purposely excluding iOS-based devices.

And setting themselves up for failure. People like to take their music with them on the go, to listen to anytime, anywhere. Some Flash-based cloud music service isn't going to unseat the iPod anytime soon.

And setting themselves up for failure. People like to take their music with them on the go, to listen to anytime, anywhere. Some Flash-based cloud music service isn't going to unseat the iPod anytime soon.

If it works anything like the Amazon service you can still store songs on your device and any music you play from the cloud is automatically cached so is available even if you don't have an internet connection.

If it works anything like the Amazon service you can still store songs on your device and any music you play from the cloud is automatically cached so is available even if you don't have an internet connection.

So, since 90% of the people can fit their ENTIRE music collection in the Phones/iPods (16 GB and less), what benefit does this cloud storage music thing gives exactly?

Being able to listen to my music when I'm at a foreign desktop in another office?

Having new uncached music play so-so depending on Wi-Fi, 3G availability?

Personally I'm moving towards needing 32GB minimum on my iDevices. I seem to be collecting a lot of DJ Mixes and Podcasts which brings my collection up to 8GB including podcast episodes.

Then I have videos for various purposes which is another 8GB. Throw in a few higher-end games and you'll see how I need 32GB.

I've seen people that can fit their entire music collection under 16GB but these people also take GBs of photos and videos eg. on their iPhone and download a lot of apps. These all add up.

I see the primary solution of the cloud to be wireless syncing. Think of Dropbox-style stuff but fully integrated with iDevices for all kinds of media. All your apps, media, anything, with you at all times, everywhere, seamlessly, without having to think about it.

The problem now is, how do I get even 8GB of stuff on the cloud and be reliably synchronised and delivered on-demand over 3G, 4G, WiFi, whatever?

Dropbox is highly successful because it focuses primarily on documents. Evernote is successful because it focuses on snippets of information.

Music, video and photos is at least an order of magnitude greater in terms of storage and bandwidth required.

Even if I had the bandwidth to put 4GB of songs on any of these music cloud services, I would never have enough bandwidth (particularly 3G) to enjoy them on-demand for even a week, even assuming the streaming works.

Here's what I see Apple's "cloud" needs to do at minimum:
1. Throw iDisk out the window and have full Dropbox-style integration for any file.
2. Have over-the-air activation and updates through WiFi so an iPhone and iPad can be used without having ever to need a PC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by foljs

So, since 90% of the people can fit their ENTIRE music collection in the Phones/iPods (16 GB and less), what benefit does this cloud storage music thing gives exactly?

Being able to listen to my music when I'm at a foreign desktop in another office?

Having new uncached music play so-so depending on Wi-Fi, 3G availability?

Quote:

Originally Posted by magicj

Agreed.

Also, why would I pay for a cloud subscription fee on top of the money I already paid to get my songs on iTunes.

Just for the record, I see the same questions for Apple's upcoming cloud product. To me, "The Cloud" looks like solution in search of a problem in the consumer space.

If I want free music, I have Pandora. Why would I want a power hunger,CPU gobbling, Flash based cloud music service? I see zero need for cloud based storage of music, which does no good when you are on the road (unless you want to eat into you download limit) and when any phone or iPod/mp3 player already hold thousands of songs.

Regardless if it is apple or google, I don't see cloud storage for music being much of a hit. Google is just making things worse for themselves, by NOT having any major music labels behind them.

The music companies have had a go at Amazon about not getting special licences from them for their cloud storage. Hopefully Amazon will take them to court and win allowing owners of music to store it where they will.

Combining Skype with Microsoft Messenger and Windows Live messenger will probably give them a "phone company" with close to 1 Billion users, which is pretty damn impressive.

In terms of clients, FaceTime is basically useless compared to Skype - single platform, wifi only, no calls to normal phones, no SMS or screen-sharing. I don't really know why Apple even bothered, and get the feeling they had to released a neutered version of Skype to appease the american telecoms who don't want competition on SMSing or Long Distance calling...

Google is just making things worse for themselves, by NOT having any major music labels behind them.

Not true as right now anything would be an improvement on the current state of music on Android.

Personally I think the group who are really shooting themselves in the foot here are the music labels. Android is a major platform. The music labels should be trying to make it as easy as possible for people to buy new music.

1) How many of these "hurt lockers" are we gonna see before Apple shows everyone how it's done? Even though Apple's online services have been less successful I can't help but think their data center + duration of this rumour + the recent scolding and firing from Jobs on the MobileMe launch + Amazon and Google rushing to market with a preemptive "me too" service with no label backing means that Apple has a winner.

So, how can you have a "me too" service to something that doesn't exist? As you stated, Apple thus far hasn't show anyone "how it's done" when it comes to cloud services.

Quote:

2) Flash-based service?! Google used to be all about supporting open standards. This almost sounds like they are purposely excluding iOS-based devices.

What's wrong with a little screw you directed at Apple? It's not like Apple hasn't done the exact same thing to others. Like when they forced up the price of ebooks to the detriment of Amazon. Or the intentional breaking of 3rd party device syncing via iTunes. Or all the trash talking about Flash.

Chances are if Apple ends up with licences for streaming, it'll be because the studios want leverage to go after Amazon and apparently soon Google. They'll have a precedent with someone licensing that access. Consumers will only be hurt in the process. Except that as Amazon stated, there's no need for a separate license to do what they're doing. As has been pointed out, you can accomplish the same thing Amazon is doing via iDisk (though clumsier).

Quote:

3) Not having native app access at launch tells me it's rushed.

Who says there isn't a native Android app (or maybe an iOS app too)? All I got was that the web version was Flash based, meaning a no-go for iOS devices.

Quote:

4) Why leak this the night before the the keynote?

What's so strange about that? How many times has Apple had a leak about an announcement that was happening the next day? Doesn't seem particularly unusual.

Not true as right now anything would be an improvement on the current state of music on Android.

Personally I think the group who are really shooting themselves in the foot here are the music labels. Android is a major platform. The music labels should be trying to make it as easy as possible for people to buy new music.

How is a Flash player an improvement over the current state of locally stored music from ripped CDs, iTS, and Amazon MP3 Store, as well as all the other ways in which you can stream music from the cloud?

The music labels have already tried to unseat Apples dominance by giving Amazons music store what Jobs had asked for years earlier. Amazon may have gainsaid some traction but not nearly enough to shift any power back to the labels.

If the labels can make deals with Apple, MS and Amazon I cant see why they cant make deals with Google unless Googles goal is to get rights without paying much of anything, if anything.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

So, how can you have a "me too" service to something that doesn't exist? As you stated, Apple thus far hasn't show anyone "how it's done" when it comes to cloud services.

Ask Amazon and Google. It’s an attempt to one up based on rumours, hence preemptive.

Quote:

What's wrong with a little screw you directed at Apple? It's not like Apple hasn't done the exact same thing to others. Like when they forced up the price of ebooks to the detriment of Amazon. Or the intentional breaking of 3rd party device syncing via iTunes. Or all the trash talking about Flash.

1) You really need to look into what Amazon was doing to their publishers. That was the real screw.

2) There is nothing wrong with screwing your competition fairly, but there is something wrong with screwing your customers as method to that madness will screw you in the end. Without support iOS-based devices this service will not be a commercial success.

Quote:

]Chances are if Apple ends up with licences for streaming, it'll be because the studios want leverage to go after Amazon and apparently soon Google. They'll have a precedent with someone licensing that access. Consumers will only be hurt in the process. Except that as Amazon stated, there's no need for a separate license to do what they're doing. As has been pointed out, you can accomplish the same thing Amazon is doing via iDisk (though clumsier).

No license needed to do what Amazon is doing is not the same thing as no license needed to do what Apple or others might do.

Have you even checked out Amazon’s service. It’s just a basic storage system like iDisk, which also plays audio from the App Store app. It can’t do playlists but it has nice scrubbing features like in the iPod app. I full expect a modern product from this data center not what Amazon has thrown together.

Quote:

Who says there isn't a native Android app (or maybe an iOS app too)? All I got was that the web version was Flash based, meaning a no-go for iOS devices.

Yes, not go for iOS devices. The article makes clear "that means no Apple devices”. If the author was aware of a native app don’t you think he would have stated it? I surely do.

Quote:

]What's so strange about that? How many times has Apple had a leak about an announcement that was happening the next day? Doesn't seem particularly unusual.

Oh yeah?! Show me where Tim Cook leaked all the juicy details the night before Steve Jobs got on stage for a keynote. How about Jon Ives or Scott Forstall? Can you name a single Apple exec that leaked Jobs keynote address highlights the night before? I can’t.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

i can upload 20,000 songs from my itunes, listen to them from anywhere on my laptop or $20 android phone that only has 8GB of storage. i might even get rid of my music from my ipad for this and use the space for something else

why pay apple for flash memory when you can stream your own music in any order you want from the google cloud?

So, how can you have a "me too" service to something that doesn't exist? As you stated, Apple thus far hasn't show anyone "how it's done" when it comes to cloud services.

What's wrong with a little screw you directed at Apple? It's not like Apple hasn't done the exact same thing to others. Like when they forced up the price of ebooks to the detriment of Amazon. Or the intentional breaking of 3rd party device syncing via iTunes. Or all the trash talking about Flash.

Chances are if Apple ends up with licences for streaming, it'll be because the studios want leverage to go after Amazon and apparently soon Google. They'll have a precedent with someone licensing that access. Consumers will only be hurt in the process. Except that as Amazon stated, there's no need for a separate license to do what they're doing. As has been pointed out, you can accomplish the same thing Amazon is doing via iDisk (though clumsier).

Who says there isn't a native Android app (or maybe an iOS app too)? All I got was that the web version was Flash based, meaning a no-go for iOS devices.

What's so strange about that? How many times has Apple had a leak about an announcement that was happening the next day? Doesn't seem particularly unusual.

too bad for the music studios there is a tech called deduplication. people can upload 10,000 copies of a song and the server will strip out all the redundant bits so the data is only stored only once. saves on storage space and intel CPU's are so powerful these days you can dedupe and put the data back together in real time

With Apple you get Stevoreno (Steve Jobs, AKA "The Steve") who is able to control and direct said "programmers" into producing software that is intuitive like iTunes, Safari, iLife, iWork, OSX, iOS, etc., etc.

Mmmm.... I agree with your "crap" opinion of many of those products.

I do have some knowledge/experience with MSWorks... and feel that I must come to its defense.

Don Williams, while still at Apple, put together the people and project * to create the "Works" program that would become MSWorks.

* This was not an Apple project -- rather an outside project that was done independently (with Apple's knowledge).

Every week or so, Don would bring the latest development version of Works by our store and show it to our management, staff and customers -- for acclamation, evaluation and feedback.

It evolved into quite a nice little suite of programs.

Don ended up licensing Works to MIcrosoft.

Later, after Don and I had both retired, we discussed "Works" in some detail -- Don made tons of $, but was under contract to make changes to, and maintain the product for a certain period of time.

AIR, some of the "required" changes dumbed-down "Works"so MS Works was less competitive to MS Office.

I know it's anecdotal, but according to our staff (who had used/seen before and after MS Works was never as good as the original "Works".

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